Web Services -- WCF vs. ASMX ("Standard")

Question

I am working on a new project. Is there any benefit with going with a WCF web service over a regular old fashion web service?

Visual Studio offers templates for both. What are the differences? Pros and cons?

Solution 1

What is a "regular old fashioned web service?" An ASMX service, or are you using WSE as well? ASMX services are not naturally interoperable, don't support WS-* specs, and ASMX is a technology that is aging very quickly. WSE (Web Service Enhancements) services DO add support for WS-* and can be made to be interoperable, but WCF is meant to replace WSE, so you should take the time to learn it. I would say that unless your application is a quick an dirty one-off, you will gain immense flexibility and end up with a better design if you choose WCF. WCF does have a learning curve beyond a [WebMethod] attribute, but the learning curve is over-exaggerated in my opinion, and it is exponentially more powerful and future proof than legacy ASMX services.

Unless your time line simply cannot tolerate the learning curve, you would be doing yourself a huge favor learning WCF instead of just sticking with ASP.NET Web Services. Applications will only continue to become more and more distributed and interconnected, and WCF is the future of distributed computing on the Microsoft platform.

Here is a comparison between the two.

Solution 2

The Pros of doing all by yourself is:

• No learning curve
• Very flexible

The Pros of WCF are:

• Costs less time in the longer run
• Switch protocols without programming

A disadvantage of WCF: some static property names can be pretty lengthy...

To summarize: WCF lets you focus on programming, but you need to learn it first ;-)

Solution 3

Pro for WCF : You don't need a web server (i.e. IIS). You actually don't need a server OS.

Solution 4

I like the fact writing WCF services makes it easy to separate your service from the implementation. You can write your service and then host it in IIS, a console application, or a Windows service; you can also talk to it via HTTP, net TCP, etc.

Solution 5

Unit tests on your services implamentation and interaction are easier to do !

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Comments

[John Saunders]

-1 for misinformation and unsubstantiated opinion. I can only assume you're talking about configuration when you say that WCF is "verbose", in which case, you should start using .NET 4.0 or 4.5. "Not compatible with other Microsoft products" should be substantiated if you want to be taken seriously. But you lose all credibility by contrasting WCF with SOAP.

[magallanes]

@John Saunders, so you are trolling me without any reason. sheesh guy. And no, even in net 4.0, wcf is still half baked. Anyways, WCF is vendor locked.

[John Saunders]

Youb clearly have no idea what you're talking about. "Vendor locked" is obvious nonsense. You can correct my opinion by presenting facts and not rants.

[mbx]

You can use WCF in many ways: With http/SOAP you get a wsdl to generate client code automatically with most technologies which is neat if your service should be public. For internal services net.tcp and even MSMQ are an option - you can lock yourself in, if you insist to do so.

[magallanes]

What i can do with WCF that i can't do with SOAP?.